“ It costs … taxpayers $109,782.60 a year – or $301.60 each day - to keep a prisoner "on the inside", according to the Australian Productivity Commission. Alternatively it costs $49,700 – less than half - to provide that prisoner with rent, food, a small four-cylinder car and money for any degree in Australia for a year”. [Brisbane Times 28 Febuary 2016]

Those Australians who can trace their lineage to the first English settlement of Australia in 1788, and for a few decades following, often have a sentimental attachment to the idea of a convict ancestor, at a safe historical distance. One of mine was transported to Australia for stealing a sheep, did his seven years of hard labour in Tasmania, got a land grant after release and made enough to bring his wife and children out from England. Eventually he became a prosperous farmer. Another,a cabin boy on a sailing ship, found himself chained to a treadmill in Launceston for jumping the said ship, escaped, headed for the hills, or rather Victoria’s gold fields, where he scratched enough gold to buy some Tasmanian land, built the first gaol in a small town and became the first prisoner for being drunk and disorderly in charge of a pony cart, smashed out of his mind on cheap whisky. Such was life.

Nowadays it is all far more antiseptic, mechanised, computerised and depersonalized. Also extremely expensive via an untraceable money trail from taxpayers’ wages to bureaucratic collectors, to politicians spending other people’s money, and increasingly to trans-national private prison contracting companies. The bulk of prisoners are not self-starters like my ancestors. They are mostly individuals with poor self discipline, very low personal competence and responsibility, low literacy & numeracy and who have a certain (well justified) sense that the game of life is stacked against them. By the chronological age of 60 their physical age is 70 compared to the general population.

A special group are indigenous Australians who constitute less than 2% of the general population but 25% of the prison population and increasing. Clearly there is a major cultural problem to be solved there. Another more recent special group are essentially a category of political prisoners, a.k.a. undocumented refugees who have arrived at Australia’s borders without an invitation. They are imprisoned at phenomenal expense offshore in facilities run by private contractors, almost beyond legal and humanitarian reach, on Manus Island (PNG), Nauru Island and Christmas Island.

Outline of talking points

The topic of this discussion headlines the cost of imprisonment in Australia. Clearly there are different kinds of imprisonment entailing different levels of cost. However any discussion of alternatives which goes beyond casual uninformed opinion has to take into account the range of legal punishments available in Australia, their rationale, their community and political context, and the various types of prisoners themselves. The checklist below is not exhaustive, but will serve as a reminder of the factors playing into the vexed question of imprisonment costs.

The manipulation of political advantage in Australia is not normally lethal (as it is in many other international jurisdictions) but regularly sets up privileged groups whose activities may be considered ethically, environmentally or economically criminal by other segments of the wider society.

mollification of interest groups

commercial and tax concessions

environmental concessions

corrupt award of contracts

personal political ambition

3. Alternatives to imprisonment

Short term

fines

parole

community work

social & educational rehabilitation

restrictions on travel

restrictions on starting a business

Long term

prohibition from certain occupations and roles

identification as a deviant or unstable person

4. Reasons for imprisonment

a) Revenge

Revenge is a quite elemental response to being wronged. It can be expressed both through personal revenge (which states like Australia discourage) and through outsourced revenge in the form institutional punishment. A characteristic of almost all official rationales for imprisonment is that the revenge motive is discounted. Conversely, the dominant characteristic of personal, public, media and hence political discussions of imprisonment is that revenge, by whatever euphemism (e.g. “paying a price”), is usually the foremost popular driving force, even where it is shown to be counterproductive to community interests. There is frequent pressure on the judiciary to satisfy public outrage by inflicting suitable punishment on offenders. Mandatory sentencing is the clearest political expression of this (and known to be ineffective as a deterrent). Fortunately in the current secular society of Australia, issues are not usually made even more complicated by fixed religious proscriptions, as they are in many other places.

b) Community protection

Protection from violent crime of any kind, as well as from personal theft, are among the most basic reasons for the existence of political power structures in communities, extending back to tribal times. Violence and theft always demands a protective response. The police initially, then judicial officers, are tasked with evaluating this kind of crime and taking offenders out of circulation in some way.

The public response to such incidents, together with media reports, is generally unsophisticated, which again can create a political problem in sentencing offenders. For example, in sentencing a judge must take account not only of precedent, but also the character and history of the offender, together with their likelihood of reoffending. There are obviously individuals who are a lethal menace to society in general. They are not numerous. A large percentage of murders for example are one-off incidents arising in domestic circumstances. Drugs play an outsized part such uncontrolled behaviour. In situations like this, a dominantly revenge response may not be in the long term interests of the society or the offender.

c) Political fashion and political advantage

The “law and order” type of election is a cliché seen often in every jurisdiction worldwide, precisely because it has populist appeal with the least thinking part of every electorate. The consequences for the practical administration of justice are almost never beneficial, but by then the political caravan has moved on. That is, populism is a part of the crime problem, and we pay dearly for it – the topic of this discussion. “Lock ‘em up and throw away the keys” will always earn votes. Have you ever heard a politician say “We’ll lock ‘em up and charge you $100,00 a year for each one we lock up”?. Do we have debates about cutting off your nose to spite your face? At least Australia does not elect
judges in the American style, with “the land of the free” having the world’s
largest imprisoned population: "The United States has the highest incarceration rate of any country in the world. While the US has only five per cent of the world's population, its prisons hold a quarter of all prisoners worldwide. The US also has very high recidivism rates with two-thirds of offenders being reincarcerated. A factor contributing to the growth in prison population has been 'tough-on-crime' policies" (Commonwealth of Australia Parliamentary Report 2013).

d) Protection of prisoners from further degradation (e.g. from drugs)

e) Rehabilitation

The rehabilitation of convicted persons is the segment of the justice field with the largest potential for reducing both the social and economic costs of crime. This has been known for well over a century. In spite of this potential, in every international jurisdiction as well as Australia, it has always received a relatively small proportion of funding and also erratic funding depending upon the ignorance and political opportunism of the government of the day. There are numerous reasons for this apparent irrationality, including:

a) The effects of crime are dramatic and immediate, sparking demands for rapid, obvious punishment. Prison is the ultimate quick and visible demonstration of “fixed”, regardless of whether it works to reduce crime. Rehabilitation and other social work are long term, low key projects without easy metrics to measure success. They offer no visceral satisfaction to the voters.

b) As with prison employment itself, prisoner rehabilitation as well as more general social work are typically not attractive careers for most people. The pay is modest at best, the status is low, and the work can be emotionally draining, sometimes dangerous. The field attracts some dedicated people, but (as with teaching) some are drawn to it who aren’t really the best for the human job at hand, and some may do more harm than good.

c) Most crime is the outcome of generational factors, starting with child raising methods, family environments, employment stability, and so on. In any community, resetting this kind of thing is very, very difficult, and more so when it comes through the medium of clumsy, bureaucratic intervention.

In spite of all the preceding caveats, the sheer cost of imprisonment together with accumulated evidence of its weak contribution to the reduction of crime, has begun to force governments to look at more innovative solutions. After all, even though the prison incarceration rate in Australia is only a fifth of that in the United States, the actual monetary cost is roughly equivalent to the entire income Australia earns from a large international student industry.

Any kind of political approach to a problem needs a catchy label to wrap around an ideology. The most current of these labels to “fix” crime, preferably before it happens is, “Justice Reinvestment”. What is Justice Reinvestment? An Australian Parliamentary report (2013) begins to explain the concept:

“Justice reinvestment was initially developed in the United States as a means of curbing spending on corrections and reinvesting savings from this reduced spending in strategies that can decrease crime and strengthen neighbourhoods. The South Australian Justice Reinvestment Working Group noted that 'the approach is based on evidence that a significant proportion of offenders come from, and return to, a small number of communities'. It involves long, medium and short term strategies. Funding is provided for tailored programs in those communities to strengthen the community and address the causes of crime to mitigate against individuals being caught up in the criminal justice system. Those who have committed offences are diverted away from prison using other forms of punishment and those likely to reoffend are prevented from doing so through effective rehabilitation, parole supervision and after-prison support.”

Chapter 5 of the parliamentary report, Value of a justice reinvestment approach to criminal justice in Australia (2013) provides more detail on the concept, and in spite of some reservations about American experience with it, shows some commitment to trialling the process in Australia. On this one, the devil will certainly be in the detail, and in the political will to persist with it. Time will tell.

f) Putting a social problem out of sight and out of mind

5. A closer look at types of prisoners (examples)

male Vs female prisoners

age based characteristics of prisoners and crimes

indigenous prisoners (25% of the total)

white collar criminals

political prisoners

people convicted of new Internet crimes

mentally pathological or unstable prisoners

habitually violent prisoners

prisoners of very low intelligence

illiterate and innumerate prisoners

prisoners from non-mainstream subcultures

prisoners from socially and economically disadvantaged backgrounds

6. Courts and sentencing regimes

a) Interstate and inter-country comparisons

The United States has the world’s largest known prison population (China is an unknown since honest statistics about anything are unavailable, often even to its own officials). A major reason for this bit of American infamy is that prison sentences tend to be longer than almost anywhere else. It is an odd quirk of psychology that a country which advertises its “Christian” credentials so loudly is less given to mercy and more attracted to revenge than other nations (a comparison with fervently Islamic governments is apt).

The typical mandatory sentence for a first-time drug offense in a [US] federal court is five or ten years, compared to other developed countries around the world where a first time offense would warrant at most 6 months in jail. Mandatory sentencing prohibits judges from using their discretion and forces them to place longer sentences on nonviolent offenses than they normally would do…. the average burglary sentence in the United States is 16 months, compared to 5 months in Canada and 7 months in England. [Wikipedia 2016]

How do we know that revenge is the driving force in these long American sentences? Simply because recidivism (offending again) is increased, not decreased by long term incarceration. It has been wryly remarked that American prisoners emerge with “PhDs in crime”, shown by the fact that America also has very high recidivism at 77% within 5 years of release.

An alternate approach to judicial sentencing is to focus not only on the crime and the prisoner, but to focus looking forward at what sentencing is going to cost the community. From that point of view, it is clear that increasing prison terms increases the future ongoing costs to the community enormously.

Pilkington, Ed (29 April 2016) "43 years in solitary: 'There are moments I wish I was back there'. Albert Woodfox, who was America’s longest-standing solitary confinement prisoner up until his release in February, describes what it feels like to be free The Guardian online @ http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/29/albert-woodfox-43-years-solitary-confinement-wish-i-was-back

Safi, Michael (28 April 2016) "Inmates squeezed into NSW jails as prisoner numbers hit record high. Changes to NSW bail laws have been blamed for boosting the state’s prison population, which grew by 9% in a year. As prisoners are driven to jail in NSW, new statistics reveal the state’s inmate population has hit a peak of 12,390". The Guardian online @ http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/apr/28/inmates-squeezed-into-nsw-jails-as-prisoner-numbers-hit-record-high

Professional bio: Thor May has a core professional interest in cognitive linguistics, at which he has rarely succeeded in making a living. He has also, perhaps fatally in a career sense, cultivated an interest in how things work – people, brains, systems, countries, machines, whatever… In the world of daily employment he has mostly taught English as a foreign language, a stimulating activity though rarely regarded as a profession by the world at large. His PhD dissertation, Language Tangle, dealt with language teaching productivity. Thor has been teaching English to non-native speakers, training teachers and lecturing linguistics, since 1976. This work has taken him to seven countries in Oceania and East Asia, mostly with tertiary students, but with a couple of detours to teach secondary students and young children. He has trained teachers in Australia, Fiji and South Korea. In an earlier life, prior to becoming a teacher, he had a decade of finding his way out of working class origins, through unskilled jobs in Australia, New Zealand and finally England (after backpacking across Asia to England in 1972).